Obama yields on US drone assassination strikes

Date: February 8 2013

Washington

IN AN abrupt U-turn, President Barack Obama will hand over to Congress classified documents outlining the legal justification for drone strikes that kill United States citizens abroad who conspire with al-Qaeda.

An administration official disclosed the move on the eve of a Senate hearing on Mr Obama's nomination of his top White House anti-terror adviser, John Brennan, to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some senators had warned Mr Brennan's confirmation could be in doubt if the Obama administration did not share more information on the legal and constitutional grounding for the US government killing its own citizens.

However, the administration and Saudi Arabia were silent over reports on Wednesday that the CIA was secretly using an air base in Saudi Arabia to conduct its assassination campaign in neighbouring Yemen.

The reports revealed that the drones that killed the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in September 2011, and Said al-Shehri, a senior al-Qaeda commander who died from his injuries last month, were launched from the base.

The revelation is an embarrassment to the White House, which pressured The Washington Post and other media to suppress the information on national security grounds. The killings of Awlaki and his son contributed to demands in Congress for greater transparency by the White House over drone attacks on US citizens.

''Today, as part of the President's ongoing commitment to consult with Congress on national security matters, the President directed the Department of Justice to provide the congressional intelligence committees access to classified Office of Legal Counsel advice,'' an administration official said.

Mr Obama's aides insist killing al-Qaeda suspects, some of them US citizens, in places like Pakistan or Yemen complies with US law and the constitution, even when no intelligence links targets to specific plots.

Mr Brennan was forced to withdraw from contention as CIA director four years ago over his role in justifying CIA abductions and torture at secret foreign sites under George W. Bush.

It is now his job from his office in the basement of the White House to draw up lists of suspected terrorists for assassination by drone. They are signed off by Mr Obama on what have become known as ''kill-list Tuesdays''.

In the past four years, the US has conducted six times as many drone strikes in Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush in the previous four years, according to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a non-profit news group.

The CIA has used unmanned aerial vehicles in 362 strikes in Pakistan since 2004, 310 under Mr Obama, in which as many as 3461 people - including as many as 891 civilians - have been killed, the group says.

The CIA's use of drones has come under challenge as a breach of international law because the agency is not a recognised military force.

Saudi Arabia has previously publicly denied co-operating with the US to target al-Qaeda in Yemen.

The drone issue is sensitive in Saudi Arabia because of the unpopularity of US military bases, which were thought to have been largely removed after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. AFP, AGENCIES